Schumer claims victory as Senate moves to avert shutdown; GOP says he got played

The Senate quietly moved its solution to halt a government shutdown through another key step as the tenuous truce between Republicans and Democrats continues to hold.

In the midst of a hectic, albeit open-ended and uncertainty-laden schedule, the upper chamber advanced its continuing resolution (CR) unanimously on Wednesday. 

While not the final vote, it’s a strong sign that neither side wants to thrust the federal government into uncertainty as the midterms near.

It marks a sharp departure from the shutdown politics of the last year and follows Senate Republicans’ hand-wringing for months that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., would once again lead his caucus to the brink and shut the government down for political gain.

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For now, that’s not happening.

And Schumer is saying that Democrats have wanted to keep the lights on in a bipartisan manner all along.

He contended that the CR, negotiated between the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, was a major victory for Democrats, particularly for its design to “stave off Trump’s disgraceful effort to withhold federal grants from vital projects.”

“I mean, what kind of country is this? You have two identical projects, one in a red state and one in a blue state funded the same way, same clean record,” Schumer said. “He cancels the blue state one and says the red state one is OK.”

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The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Trump administration are pushing for more control over federal grants, which critics like Schumer and others warn could be used as a political cudgel to dictate which states do and don’t get a flow of federal dollars.

If the CR passes and is signed by Trump, it will pause that rule change until Dec. 11, when the stopgap expires.

But Republicans say it’s not quite the victory Schumer thinks it is.

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Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., countered that Schumer may think he won with the deal, but, in reality, it just delayed the inevitable for the White House’s plans for grant-funded projects.

“I think he’s going to go back to his base and say, ‘I got the OMB rule killed,’” Kennedy said. “Well, he didn’t. I mean, I’ve talked to [OMB Director] Russ Vought, and the president this morning about that, and the rule can be ready by Dec. 11. So, no harm, no foul.”